Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Maine
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Maine Project


The Critical Leading Edge of Gulf of Maine Salt Marshes – Interface with Freshwater Wetlands, Uplands, and Constraints by Human Development. Collaboration with Joe Kelley, Dan Belknap, Margot Mansfield, University of Maine.

March 2010 - December 2011


Personnel

Participating Agencies

  • Maine Sea Grant

We seek to establish the nature and rates of change occurring at the critical leading edge of transgression (overlap) of salt marshes in Maine over coastal wetlands and adjacent upland environments. We will link these changes to sea-level and climate changes, as well interactions with human land use, development, run-off of water and sediments. We seek to establish the physical and ecological factors that most influence these changes, and through scientific publications and outreach activities make information available to planners, regulators, and landowners to better understand and deal with existing and likely future stresses at this critical interface.We will map selected environments in a series of sites along the Maine coast that demonstrate varying tidal range, climate, and degree of human impact. We will document change with detailed sequential airphoto analysis. We will establish stratigraphic environments and rates of change with georadar (GPR) and coring.